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12"
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CORE 093HI-EP
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"One of the indisputable leaders of the '90s club music vanguard, DJ Duke offered a dark, debauched, and utterly visionary interpretation of NYC house music that remains unchallenged in its scope and vision to this day. The self-made dance music icon and multiple label founder graduated from his first love of hip-hop during his transformation from b-boy to full-on house head in the late 1980s, establishing his own brand of future club music that heralded a qualitative shift away from live instrumentation to the broader reaches of a purely electronic breed of garage -- a stark, totally new landscape of deeply textured house purity that never really sounded like any other producer out there. Having already inaugurated the CORE series with two tracks from the seminal Old Skool Deep Sampler, the master returns for a second tour: two of his productions under the moniker Freedom (with vocalist Lee Smith Jr.), shining jewels of the 'often imitated, never duplicated' aesthetic situated between the twilight of Manhattan mecca-clubs, Giuliani-era repression and the refusal of minority and gay culture to disappear. The never to be repeated outcome: music like 'Love Don't Come Easy,' one of the most profound, haunting and totally prophetic vocal house records of unrepentant desire ever released. On the flip, Duke's proteges The Klubb Kidz remix 'Closer' into a devastating workout of the namesake's vocal sample, demonstrating their take on the Power Music staple sound with unparalleled efficacy and energy. Seeing the light for the first time in over 15 years, these Duke masterpieces are a testament to the undying resistance of devoted club children in the strange landscape of post-AIDS crisis NY, seeking to carve out a whole new soundtrack to their continued exploits into the '90s and beyond."
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